Wednesday News

We had a bit of a snafu today. The hospital suddenly blocked Blogger which meant I could not post anything new or read any of your comments. Fortunately, we’ve had an awesome nurse the last three days and she hooked me up with the tech folks, so all is well and good now. Actually, all of the nursing staff and our current doctors are great. The only problems we’ve ever had have been with the original neurosurgery practice, but we don’t have to deal with them anymore. That makes for a much happier Diane.

I didn’t post anything yesterday because there wasn’t a whole lot to write about. I can only stretch my wit so far when Mike isn’t giving me much to write about. I would hate for you all to be in search of a Cliff’s Notes version of the blog because it has become boring to read. So…if I don’t post, it’s just because there haven’t been any big changes. I will make sure I write a new post at least every other day or if anything major happens—good or bad. With all that being said (or written, actually), here’s an update on the last couple of days…

Mike slept a lot yesterday. I was beginning to think we were going to have a Rip Van Wrinkle on our hands. He practically slept through his radiation treatment—he was asleep before he went down there and shortly after it was finished. He woke up for breakfast and stayed alert really well until he became exhausted with the physical therapy. He sat up for about 33 minutes (this is always with assistance, by the way), moved some limbs independently, then was worn out and went back to sleep! That’s about all that happened yesterday, hence the reason there was no post.

I think today Mike has looked the best that I’ve seen him since we left for Duke. He’s been awake and alert for most of the day, though he had a few moments where he seemed quiet and out of it. A different physical therapist worked with him today, so she did things a little differently. Rather than having him sit on the edge of the bed for an extended period of time, she tried to make him sit by himself and move a little more on his own. He did a pretty good job, but he has quite a long way to go before he’s remotely close to moving around on his own regularly. But hey, from the wisdom of today’s feature on TLC’s Ten Years Younger, “Life is like a toaster. You have to be pushed down before you can pop up!” As I was feeding Mike lunch, he developed a really strong voice and the nurse could hear him in the hall; she was quite impressed—she had not heard him talk that well yet.

The doctor did start lowering Mike’s steroids on Monday. He was on 20mg four times a day (it was six when he was first admitted to ICU at Duke), and it is now at 15mg four times daily. As long as it doesn’t appear that his brain is doing some rebound swelling from the treatment, the dose should be lowered to 10mg by the end of the week. The goal is to get him down to 4 mg every six hours.

And forgive me for a having a “proud momma” moment…Ava had a little program at her preschool last night since the music teacher became sick right after Thanksgiving and they couldn’t do it at Christmas. As she went on stage she raised her arms in the air and said, “I’m up here, Mommy!” a few times so everyone could hear. I’m including a picture of us after her stage debut! For those of you not too into children, just take it as an opportunity to see a miniature Mike in a dress!